LEGAL COMMUNITY IN CHINA

That this House is very concerned about China's country-wide crackdown against lawyers and the legal community, with hundreds of criminal defence and human rights lawyers, law firm staff, family members and lay advocates being subjected to wrongful arrests and prosecutions, arbitrary and incommunicado detentions and enforced disappearances without judicial oversight, and over 20 still missing or detained; notes that the trial of lawyer Pu Zhiqiang on charges of inciting ethnic hatred and picking quarrels and provoking trouble for comments made on social media, some of which questioned the authorities' excessively violent crackdown on Uighurs in Xinjiang, has been marred by repeated procedural irregularities and ended with no verdict being announced, though he faces up to eight years in prison if convicted; further notes in connection with that trial that diplomats were denied entry to the courtroom and that police and plain clothes security officials pushed and harassed journalists and cameramen near the courthouse entrance; believes that the crackdown on these lawyers in China effectively denies the right to legal representation for Chinese people and groups seeking remedies for other rights violations; and calls on the Government to be more forthright in its condemnation of Chinese President Xi Jinping's crackdown on lawyers, campaigners and journalists who challenge the Chinese government and China's failure to adhere to its international human rights obligations and to uphold the rule of law.